Customer Reviews

A Good House

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

In 1949 Stonebrook, Ontario, Bill and Sylvia Chambers and their three children feel optimistic about the future after the gloom of the recent war. However, the boom economy fails to keep reality out as a few years later, Sylvia dies. Not too long after that, Bill marries Margaret Kemp.

Over the subsequent years, happiness and tragedy strike the now extended Chambers family. Through the best and worst of times, Margaret surprisingly becomes the glue that keeps the family together even as new families have been formed and the younger generation moves on to new lives.

A GOOD HOUSE is a very good character study of a Canadian family during the latter half of the twentieth century. The story line is low keyed, but very insightful into the desires, motives, and even the "protective" lies that provide the audience with a full look (so deep readers will feel voyeuristic) into the heart and soul of the lead cast. Though by the latter years the extended family becomes difficult to keep track of, that approach adds depth to the prime players by showing the new tugs on their time and emotion, which in turn drags them away from one another. Bonnie Burnard writes an intriguing tale that shows when discerning "voyeurism" can be entertaining, realistic, and perceptive.

Harriet Klausner

This novel tells the story of one family, 3 generations, over a span of 50 years. Burnard allows us to share in their happiness, anger and grief, as well as all those other parts day-to-day existence.
The simple writing can seem one-dimensional at first glance, but take a slightly closer look and all the layers of the characters, their lives, and the story open up before you in this beautiful tapestry that we call "life."
I can honestly say that this book had a strong impact on me, to the point where I think it might actually be a life-changer for me. "A Good House" is the newest addition to my list of all-time favourite books.

This is a beautiful book. It lulls you and pulls you into the world of a Canadian family from the war years on -- a group of ordinary, decent people who brave life's usual difficulties: kids' accidents, the deaths of loved ones, troubled children, good people undone by old age. You can tell that this author loves people: the stuff of ordinary life, she seems to say, is worth our attention. As an American reader, I enjoyed this book because the characters also seem a little exotic in their own way (if you can think of Canadians as exotic). These are fairly stoic people, a little repressed, moral, genuinely preoccupied with the importance of acting decently. This is not a book that relies on fabricated drama or cute characters to grab your attention. Instead what you get is the wisdom of an author who really knows people, and who is able to capture the small and great events in their lives with beautiful, precise language. This is also a novel that acquires momentum and becomes more profound with every page. The portrait of Mr. Chambers in his old age is powerful, moving and brilliant.

This novel beguiled me from the back cover intro right through to the superbly satisfying ending with its slow, elegant pace. Readers who want speed and sensation should look elsewhere. This is for readers who want to turn every page slowly and thoughtfully and reflect on the lives of the characters. Bonnie Burnard pierced my heart with her truths several times - particularly the experiences that I shared with the characters. Each of the characters is slowly revealed over the years and spotlit in their own time. I think this is a masterpiece and I am recommending it to my writers group as an example of the honestly we should have the courage to write with. Anyone who enjoys Jane Hamilton and Barbara Kingsolver will be more than happy with this book.

Bonnie Burnard's luminescent debut novel, "A Good Home," traces the fifty-year history of a Canadian family whose qualities, conflicts and struggles ultimately attain universal symbolism and significance. Through realistic dialogue and acutely perceptive descriptions of the external environment and internal psychologies of the Chambers family, the author gracefully transforms our understanding of this "normal" family into one of deep appreciation and genuine compassion. "A Good Home" signals the introduction of a novelist who understands the ability of literature of inspire both appreciation of the art of writing and respect for the value of an examined life.

Burnard introduces us to characters who constantly struggle, grappling with either physical deformities or emotional bruises. Her characters are not tidy people, and the messes they make with their lives invariably embroil those they love. Once enmeshed with the compromises and tensions of family members, the characters yearn for coherence, not only in the family structure, but within their own selves. The members of the Chambers family, usually honorable and steadfast in their quest for integrity, nevertheless watch as dreams crumble, loves wane and children reach eleswhere for understanding and acceptance. The bruises and imperfections each member of the clan possesses ironically make them more perfect in the eyes of the reader.

This sense of believability, therefore, is the single greatest strength of this spacious, nearly-panoramic novel. The father, Bill, whose hand suffered permanent disfigurement during World War II, strives his entire life to create stability and permanence; he is rewarded with the premature death of his wife, Sylvia and the unexpected emergence of a truly admirable woman, Margaret, who becomes his second wife. The children, Paul, Patrick and Daphne, struggle mightily with the issues of identity, acceptance and marriage; their results are mixed and surprisingly different. Throughout, Ms. Burnard provides intricately detailed descriptions of home life, anchoring not only her characters, but her readers as well, in the sense of home which pervades her novel.

My only reservation with "A Good House" is its crowded nature. Like any home built for a nuclear family which unexpectedly is required to shelter more people than its initial design intended, the novel simply has too many people swimming through its layered plot. By the time Bill has become a great-grandfather, the reader almost needs a score-card to know who belongs to whom and how each is related to the other. Excessive numbers of chracters dulls rather than shines light on the themes and often diverts attention from the otherwise strong plot line.

Despite this minor irritant, "A Good House" is a wonderful, compelling exploration of the manifest dynamism and unexpected turmoil a truly vibrant family must encounter.

If I were an author, I would imagine that deciding to try to make a very average family interesting to a reader would be a daunting task. This author seems to have decided that it can not only be interesting, but can be affirming as well. The best word that I can think of to describe this book is lyrical. Please don't expect this book to grab you in the first 20 pages and then take you for a roller coaster ride. IT WON"T. What it WILL do is rock you, comfortably, with a series of compelling changes to a single family over a period of many years. In some ways, it reads more like a biography. I will admit that I found myself wondering, in the first chapter or two, where the author was going. I will also admit that I was surprised to find myself caring so much about these characters, some of whom were all too similar to some in my own family. Sure, there are LOTS of characters to keep straight...and I admit that I was a bit confused at times. Try explaining your extended family to a stranger sometime...not an easy task for most of us, and the story is often in the details. This author DEPENDS on the details to progress her story, and, extensive though they may be, they are necessary to creating the true sense of place that permeates the book. This is one of my 2 favorite reads of the year 2000, and frankly, I was a bit surprised by that myself. This family lingers in your memory, and is almost too human. The achievement of the author is simple in concept, if not in the doing. She creates a family that is, if not "normal" based on the reader's personal experience, is still "average" enough to allow the reader to relate to them. Bonnie Burnard answers the questions that you wish you could (or had the courage to) ask of your own family. Sometimes I found these answers infuriating. Still, I was glad that she asked them for me...certainly easier than asking them myself.

The debut novel by Bonnie Burnard caught me unawares, simply because whatever I had expected, I hadn't expected this. Set in a small Canadian town on the shores of Lake Huron, "A Good House" is a chronicler's narrative, a history of one large family, or rather a set of blood-interconnected families. Divided into chronologically ordered parts, the novel unveils the events from the family's life, just as it started, with scattered hints regarding previous generations, and then the overlapping histories of children chime in, their lives chronicles as decades pass, and they lose their childhood in favor of the dramas, joys and troubles of adulthood. We observe them from a distance, as they age, get married, divorce, die and get reborn in the generations two times removed. That distance is quite well-kept throughout the narrative, being the most prominent feature of the novel. In fact, despite the dialogues and first-person thoughts prickling our reader's mind from time to time, the narrative quickly comes back to the steady flow of description. Not even a third-person narrative that is, simply because the objects change like in a kaleidoscope, families fuse together, and there are no characters who are allowed any kind of introspection. Even Margaret, the backbone of the family, does not deserve anything more than a casual look, as if the author had decided to write a story about some imaginary town with equally imaginary family. The fact that this is work of fiction does not imply that the reader is not to feel engaged, to live with the characters, standing there, just beside them, silent and observant. Reading "A Good House", I did not have that feeling of being lost; at all times I was aware that I am reading a book, that not even the author could relate to her own characters. I am quite sure that was intended, but as intended as it might have been, I am even less sure that the final effect was anything to write home about. Whenever the new part of the book looks at us with the bold typeface, within the very first page, or two at the most, we learn that this or that happened in the meantime, a few of the characters have been removed to make place for twice as many. Indeed, it's a bit of a strain to keep track of the names, barely mentioned lives, bits and pieces of events. All of this contributes to the general feeling that "A Good House" is a chronicler's tale, written from the point of view of a very distant relative, omnipotent enough from technical point of view, but not quite as potent with respect to the structure. All this said, I admit I liked the novel enough, especially its softer edge, compared to contemporary American literature, as if Canadians were just a tad closer to Europe and its traditions. If you like family-oriented books, that's a very good book to spend some time with, but I doubt it will stand up to second reading.

While A GOOD HOUSE is not a riveting and fast paced book, it is a good read that breaks from the currently popular literary attitude that life is full of HORRIBLE, UNREAL and INESCAPABLE tragedies. There are tragedies that occur, but they are truly human events that can be dealt with courageously. They are things that may happen to our own families. It's an interesting journey through several lives, kept very readable by the author. Happiness intertwines with sadness. Deception runs throughout, not used to damage, but to soften or comfort already damaged lives. For a first time novelist, I have to give Burnard the thumbs up, she handled things quite well. And I appreciate her respect toward her characters' intimate lives. So many currently popular novels overlook the fact that the reader can create scenes in their own minds, that they can't understand what happens during sex without having it all spelled out there on the page. Burnard tastefully and respectly handled this far to often degraded topic. She left it to the imagination, something hard to find these days. Thanks to the author for not offending my belief that love is and can be sacred. In all, A GOOD HOUSE rates as a good book, I'm glad I took the time to read it, It was well written--even though it wasn't a page turner.

This is a finely crafted novel about everyday people having everyday lives over a period of some 50 years. The author looks at life, death, love, hate, injury and healing, and all in all does so in a simple prose that draws you in and makes you really care about what happens to the characters.

However, if I have one small criticism, it is that the book is simply not long enough to give all of the detail of the lives of the characters, and it is this which stops it from being a truly spectacular novel. For instance we know that one of the children born will grow with some sort of physical or mental burden, but it is only hinted at until she is almost fully grown. Perhaps this is what makes the book so tantalising - the prospect that more will be revealed later, but I found that there was often insufficient to whet the appetite.

But in the scope of the novel it is a small criticism, and it is well worth reading.

Although this book was well written I found it tedious. Too many new characters were introduced and there was not a single character which was developed sufficiently to all me to become truly interested in what happened to them. Although I did enjoy the character of Margaret I found her too "good", and I had trouble with the daughter who had the two daughters but was unable to allow the father of the children into her life. I would have loved to have gotten to know some of them in more detail and had others left out.